Cisco CEO: Standout Networking Segment’s Double-Digit Growth Due To AI Is ‘Just The Beginning’

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins also took to his company’s Q1 2026 earnings call to highlight Cisco 360, the company’s soon-to-be fully reconstructed partner program, saying it was a “recognition of the growth opportunities ahead of us.”

Cisco Systems ended its first fiscal quarter of 2026 on a high note led by double-digit strength in its core networking portfolio. That’s because there’s a major multi-year, multibillion-dollar campus networking refresh cycle underway right now, driven by the need for infrastructure that can support AI, according to Cisco executives.

Cisco’s entire campus networking portfolio, which includes switching, routing, wireless and IoT, saw accelerated order growth during the first quarter of the year. What’s more, Cisco’s next-generation networking offerings, including smart switches, secure routers and Wi-Fi 7 products, are ramping faster than prior product launches, the company said.

“Cisco’s strong start to fiscal 26 is a testament to the critical role of secure networking and the strength of our portfolio as organizations look to deploy AI across their businesses. That said, we know many customers still have a lot of work to do to ensure they have the modern, scalable secure networking infrastructure to support their AI goals,” CEO Chuck Robbins said during the tech giant’s Q1 2026 earnings call on Wednesday.

The last 18 months has seen an emergence of the importance of networking relative to the AI wave, Robbins told investors.

“That’s what we do best. Driving a lot of innovation in the network, I think, at a time where the network is becoming more important, is huge. It’s just the beginning,” he said.

The why behind Cisco’s next-gen networking offerings quickly gaining popularity in the market has to do with AI preparation and the belief that security and networking go hand-in-hand, Robbins said.

“We’re the only ones who have both security and networking. You’ve seen some of our competitors announce partnerships with security vendors, and those are hard to pull off. It’s hard to get the level of integration you’re going to need to have when you don’t own each of the technologies, so, we feel like we’re well positioned there,” he said.

The AI infrastructure orders Cisco received from web scale customers totaled $1.3 billion during the company’s first quarter of its fiscal year. Robbins said that Cisco expects to recognize roughly $3 billion in AI infrastructure revenue from hyperscalers in fiscal year 2026.

Robbins also took to the earnings call to address Cisco 360, the completely remodeled channel partner program that’s launching in January and replacing the company’s iconic, 23-year-old program. The CEO called Cisco 360 a “recognition of the growth opportunities ahead of us.” It’s about aligning Cisco’s programs so that its teams and its partners are incented in the same way to go after the growth opportunities that Cisco’s sees as the future, such as campus refresh, AI, security and premium services.

The feedback on Cisco 360 coming out of Partner Summit 2025 earlier this month has been “generally positive,” Robbins said.

“We’ve launched tools to help [partners] assess the monetary impact of the new program versus the old program. ‘Does it get better? Does it hurt you? And if it’s hurting you, how can you adjust your go to market strategy to actually increase your performance in the program?’” He said. “Every time we do one of these major changes, we know there’s a reasonable chance that we miss something along the way, and our commitment to [partners] is that if we miss something, we’ll fix it. And we’ve got a long history of doing that.”

Cisco Q1 2026 Financial Results

Cisco’s networking segment includes the core switching and routing businesses, as well as the company’s telecommunications, cloud, and optical networking products. The Networking segment climbed 15 percent with revenues of $7.77 billion compared to Q1 2025’s result, which the company said was driven by strength across the portfolio, which was largely driven by revenue from AI infrastructure. Q1 2026 marked the fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth in Networking product orders, Cisco said.

Cisco’s security segment declined 2 percent year over year with revenue of $1.98 billion, which was attributed to demand for Cisco’s next generation firewalls in Q1 that was offset by declines in Cisco’s prior-generation security platforms.

The observability segment posted 6 percent revenue growth year over year of $274 million, led by growth in Splunk and ThousandEyes, said Cisco CFO Mark Patterson, who took on the CFO role on July 27.

Cisco’s collaboration segment sales fell 3 percent year over year to $1.06 billion compared to Q1 2025, driven by declines in devices, Patterson said.

The company’s product revenue, which is led by the networking business, increased 10 percent and service revenue increased 2 percent during Q1 2026.

For Cisco’s fiscal Q1 2026, which ended October 25, revenue was up 8 percent to $14.9 billion compared to the same period a year ago. Cisco posted non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.00, a 9 percent increase compared to a year ago and non-GAAP net income of $4 billion in the first fiscal quarter of the year, which was up 10 percent year over year.

Cisco’s stock climbed 3.14 percent on Wednesday to $73.96 and was up 7 percent in after-hours trading.